Avengers: Doomsday's marketing is ramping up ahead of its December 18 release, heavily spotlighting its central villain, Doctor Doom, and its countless heroes. There is one glaring omission in the promo campaign, though. Hannah John-Kamen's Ghost has been largely absent from the promotional merchandise despite being a core member of one of the movie's most important hero factions. Ghost became a member of the New Avengers in 2025's Thunderbolts after making her MCU debut as the antagonist of 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp. Her teammates Yelena Belova and Bucky Barnes have been front and center in Avengers: Doomsday's marketing, making her sidelining all the more conspicuous.
John-Kamen received her own director's chair during Marvel Studios' now-iconic Avengers: Doomsday cast announcement in March of last year, confirming her role. The reveal was met with real fanfare, as fans who enjoyed her performance in Thunderbolts were glad to see her elevated to a much bigger movie. Since that announcement, Marvel has run several promotional campaigns that excluded her character, raising eyebrows. Some fans did not make much of it initially, since Avengers: Doomsday is still a long way off. The straw that broke the camel's back was Ghost's omission from the first wave of Marvel Legends figures in September.
The second wave was revealed this October, and she is not in that one either. Even worse, she did not receive a minifigure in any of the five LEGO Avengers: Doomsday sets, which felt like low-hanging fruit given that her teammates Yelena, Red Guardian, Bucky Barnes, and Sentry all feature.
She has also been snubbed so far in Funko's wave of Pop! figures, which likewise spotlighted several of her teammates while leaving her out.
Marvel has given her scraps of attention in Avengers: Doomsday's trailers, where she appears briefly in the background of a few shots.
Her most notable promotional appearance came in the "Silence Your Phones" theater ad Marvel released in September, which featured a host of heroes watching the movie in a cinema, popcorn in hand. Even then, she is still relegated to the very back of the theater.
She also appeared in the official Avengers: Doomsday concept illustration from Andy Park, the former Marvel Studios director of visual development who was laid off earlier this year.
In that artwork, unveiled at Bilibili World in Shanghai in July, she stood alongside her New Avengers compatriots Red Guardian, Yelena, Bucky Barnes, and John Walker, the U.S. Agent. Avengers: Doomsday has also produced 25 striking posters over the past few weeks, spotlighting Doom and several heroes, and Ghost somehow fails to appear in any of them.
At this point, the neglect feels intentional. It either hints that the character plays a role too small to merit a spotlight, or that Marvel intends to kill her off in Avengers: Doomsday. It is worth remembering, though, that heavy promo placement does not guarantee a significant role. Olga Kurylenko's Taskmaster was memorably all over Thunderbolts marketing, only to be killed off early in the film. Ghost could still have a decent part to play despite her absence from merch lines.
That said, she may not be safe either, with word making the rounds that several heroes are earmarked to die in the film. Doctor Doom is positioned as an overwhelming threat here, and it would not be a surprise if Marvel made Ghost a casualty in the Latverian's war on the multiverse. Even major characters like Tom Hiddleston's Loki are rumored to be in trouble. A minor member of the New Avengers being killed off for good would hardly be the biggest shock.
This would not be the first time Marvel has treated Ghost unfairly in its marketing. In the build-up to Ant-Man and the Wasp, she only briefly appeared in the trailers. Funko gave her a standard Ghost Pop! and a Walmart-exclusive phasing variant, but Hasbro skipped her entirely in the film's 2018 Marvel Legends wave. Her first and only figure arrived a full year later, in a 2019 80th Anniversary two-pack bundled with Luis.
For Thunderbolts, Hasbro overlooked her again, building its two-packs around Yelena, Red Guardian, John Walker, Sentry, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and the Void. Funko left Ava Starr out of its Thunderbolts line as well. Avengers: Doomsday is simply following the same pattern of the reformed villain being conspicuously excluded from the marketing of the films that she appears in.
Other Notable Avengers: Doomsday Heroes Who Have Received Little Promo
Ava Starr is not the only character being denied a deserved spotlight in Avengers: Doomsday's marketing. Other notable heroes with sizable fanbases have been left out too. One is Alan Cumming's Nightcrawler, who has somehow not been glimpsed in a single shot of the trailers released so far. Unlike Ava Starr, though, Kurt Wagner has received a decent amount of love on the merch front.
Funko gave the character an exclusive vinyl figure, LEGO handed him a minifigure in its Epic Battle set, and he featured in the recent Bitty Pop! release. Still, with Avengers: Doomsday marking Cumming's first appearance as Nightcrawler in 23 years, last featuring in X2: X-Men United, he deserves a far bigger spotlight.
David Harbour's Red Guardian has also received relatively little promo compared to other characters. He appears a couple of times in the trailers, was in the "Silence Your Phones" theater ad, and received both a LEGO minifigure and a Funko Bitty Pop! release. Even so, as a notable member of the New Avengers and one of the more entertaining personalities in a group of stoic mercenaries, he warrants a much bigger push.
Lewis Pullman's Sentry has the most surprisingly small presence among the characters considered the most powerful in Avengers: Doomsday. This has many fans worried that Sentry will be depowered in the movie or handed a minimal role despite being one of the few characters strong enough to face Doom one-on-one. There is a sense that directors Joe and Anthony Russo might use Sentry to establish how powerful Doom is by having the villain defeat him early in the movie, much as Thanos dispatched the Hulk in the opening of Avengers: Infinity War.
Wyatt Russell's John Walker, also known as U.S. Agent, is in a similar position to Ava Starr. The Thunderbolts member has appeared on posters and Avengers: Doomsday merchandise but has yet to receive a single action figure, with Funko and Hasbro both prioritizing bigger names over the former Captain America.
Avengers: Doomsday features the largest cast ever assembled for a Marvel movie. As important as Ava Starr and these other characters are, a good chunk of general audiences are more invested in the likes of Thor, Steve Rogers, and Black Panther, so Marvel has centered its marketing on them and left the smaller characters hanging.
With the campaign entering its most crucial stretch, that is unlikely to change. If anything, Marvel will lean even harder on Doom and the heavy hitters. Still, receiving little attention in promos by no means guarantees a character will be killed off or rendered irrelevant. Avengers: Doomsday promises the biggest war in Marvel movie history, and anyone could be a casualty, minor or major.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
